A total of 25 participants from 19 Malaysian universities, including Dr. Ong Sue Lyn, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Communication (FAC) attended the first of a three-phase International Deans’ Course – Malaysian Chapter 9MyIDC) programme at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) in Sintok, Kedah, from 30 June to 10 July 2019. This inaugural MyIDC is a project jointly organised by several parties, namely the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT), in collaboration with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM), and Multimedia University (MMU). It is also organised with the support from Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies (DIES) which is coordinated by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and German Rectors’ Conference (HRK).
MyIDC [2019/2020] is an initiative from a team of current and former deans who have attended the DAAD DIES-IDC over the years. A total of 15 trainers, including Associate Professor Dr. Koo Ah Choo (Multimedia University) who are alumni of the DAAD DIES-IDC Southeast Asian universities were selected and trained by Professor Dr. Peter Mayer (Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, Germany) and Professor Dr. Ong Duu Sheng (Multimedia University) to conduct the programme. Divided into three phases, the MyIDC is specially designed for the Deans/Deputy Deans/Directors/Deputy Directors of faculties/academic centres from Malaysian public and private universities with limited experience in holding the position.
Fundamentally, MyIDC aims to nurture potential leaders in institutes of higher learning by strengthening the management and leadership skills of these talents, leading towards excellence in the Malaysian higher education system. The first phase of MyIDC included topics such as university governance, strategic faculty management, entrepreneurial universities, project action plan, leadership, and change management. MyIDC is highly immersive in nature with the inclusion of a challenging Project Action Plans (PAP) task to work on individually. The participants will work on the project for several months after the first phase, and then these projects will be reviewed on November 2019, and finally be presented at a colloquium during the third phase of the training programme in February 2020 at AKEPT.
